The subconscious inclusion of Epiphany

Nativity Christmas Card

Once a week we have prayers in our office. (I work for a Christian charity so there's a general acceptance that that's an appropriate thing to do!) Yesterday my colleague Jill took Epiphany as her theme and passed round a selection of Christmas cards which included the Magi, asking us to choose an image that resonated with us. I'll be honest: although the cards were visually quite different (and included this one, left) there wasn't really one that leapt out at me.

And yet I always find images and representations of the Magi fascinating for the simple reason that they are consistently the one element of the nativity scene (however inaccurate popular depictions of that may be) that reflects a tiny glimmer of the diversity and inclusion that sits at the heart of the Christmas story: one of the Magi is almost always depicted as a different ethnicity to the other two. The half a dozen cards which Jill offered us were drawn from a variety of time periods and cultures and yet with just one exception this observation held true.

Inclusion is at the heart of the Gospel. It's introduced in the birth narratives as God, through the angels and the star, calls shepherds and foreigners to be amongst the first witnesses to the incarnation of his Son. It's present at the crucifixion and resurrection, embodied in the women present at the cross and in the garden. It's made manifest at Pentecost when people from nations across the middle east and beyond hear and respond to that message in their own languages.

At a time when exclusion and discrimination against a whole variety of individuals and groups seems to be on the rise, Epiphany calls us to see and act on the Gospel imperative of inclusion invoked - consciously or otherwise - by generations of artists and Christmas card designers.